At least 17 people were killed after a young man armed with an AR-15 and multiple magazines approached the Marjory Stoneman Douglas high school and committed one of the deadliest school shootings in modern US history.

As with previous mass shootings, calls immediately erupted for Congress and President Donald Trump to "do something" to prevent the next deadly attack.

"From my personal viewpoint, it's time for Congress, government, somebody to do something. It's time to talk about what the problem is and try to fix it," Melissa Falkowski, a teacher who said she hid 19 students in her classroom's closet during the shooting, told CNN in an impassioned interview. "I feel today like our government, our country has failed us and failed our kids and didn't keep us safe."

While many lawmakers, victims, and gun control advocates have demanded swift political action, their opponents have cautioned against knee-jerk reactions and implored the public to wait for more information first.

As for the American public, their views on gun control are highly nuanced. Here's what they think:

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Spring 2017 surveys show 89% of Americans — including gun-owners and non-gun owners — tend to agree on one thing: the mentally ill should be prevented from purchasing guns.

President Donald Trump in February repealed an Obama-era rule barring certain mentally ill people from purchasing guns.
Reuters/George Frey

The so-called "gun show loophole," through which people can purchase firearms without background checks through private sales and gun shows, is similarly non-controversial. Surveys show 84% of US adults — including 77% of gun owners and 87% of non-gun owners — believe the loophole should be closed.

Another 83% of American adults believe people on the FBI's no-fly list should be blocked from buying guns. But civil liberties groups have decried previous attempts to push such legislation through Congress, arguing the no-fly list is arbitrary, frequently inaccurate, and discriminatory against Muslim-Americans.

Critics have decried the FBI's terror watch list as a "Trump-style database of Muslims" that is comprised of people who have been neither charged nor convicted of crimes.
Associated Press/Ted S. Warren

The major disagreements begin when assault-style weapons and high-capacity magazines come into play. Fewer than half of gun owners favor banning assault-style weapons, compared to 77% of non-gun owners, while those numbers are 44% to 74%, respectively, for banning high-capacity magazines.

This is a custom-made, semi-automatic hunting rifle with a high-capacity detachable magazine.
Associated Press/Rich Pedroncelli

The National Rifle Association's lobbying power is a similarly polarizing issue. Just 19% of US gun owners say they belong to the National Rifle Association — fewer than one-fifth of all the gun owners in the country.

There's a lot of disagreement over the NRA's influence on gun legislation.
Reuters/Brian Snyder

But 44% of American adults believe the NRA has too much influence over gun legislation. Meanwhile, 40% believe it has just the right amount of influence, and 15% believe it has too little.

Those beliefs appear split along party lines, even among gun owners themselves. Sixty percent of Democratic gun owners believe the NRA has too much influence, while 67% of Republican gun owners believe it has just the right amount of influence.

Republican or conservative gun owners are twice as likely to belong to the NRA as their more liberal or Democratic counterparts.
Associated Press/Evan Vucci

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Gun ownership in America has actually been declining for years — yet gun sales are at historic highs.

There are now roughly 300 million guns in America, according to the Congressional Research Service
AP

Nearly three-quarters of gun owners believe owning a gun is essential to their personal freedom.

In general, 55% of Americans want gun laws to be more strict, 10% say they should be less strict, and 34% want to keep them as they are now. It remains to be seen if those numbers will go up after another deadly mass shooting.

People are brought out of the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School after a shooting at the school that killed and injured multiple people on February 14, 2018 in Parkland, Florida.
Joe Raedle/Getty Images